First Week of classes and...

We have just finished our first week of classes. The kids have been doing excellent making their transitions. All of us have had a great time getting reacquainted with our previous classmates, while the kids have the joy of meeting a few new ones.

The first week of Culture and Language Acquisition (henceforth CLA) has been quite a bit more informative about what we'll actually be working through.

The past three days we've had the "Overview of the CLA program", "Calendar" for this semester, and the "Introduction to Phonetics" modules. Starting next Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday, we begin the Phonetics classes with daily assignments.

So far we have been exposed to the mechanics of the speech mechanism God has so marvelously designed. It is very inspiring to reflect on the fact that God invented speech and it works flawlessly. There are various ways that speech is produced but each one is incredible in its foundation, communication with others. Relationships require communication and God has ensured that relationships can be established and deepened with communication.


Phonetics is simplified by this definition: studying speech and the mechanics of producing it. We have been introduced to "Sammy" (see above image) the cross-section diagram of the speech apparatus. We will be referring to this diagram through the next four weeks as a visual aid in training our own personal speech apparatus to produce utterances we've never produced before intentionally (for most of us).

Our biggest challenge through this time is to remain focused on the purpose for this section of training, and all of it for that matter, the Word of God might be presented to men, women, and young people who have never had the opportunity before. God is taking us through this preparation for His glory and that He would be worshipped among the nations. We are thankful for this reminder of keeping this in our focus.

Thank you for your prayers for us as we spend the next four weeks in this arduous beginning phase of CLA. We thank God for every rememberance of you, too, and thank God for the opportunity to pray with you.

Roland (for the Shafers)